The general synod has been wrangling over women bishops. Again. Their consecration was made technically possible in 2008, but traditionalists have lobbied ever since for a men-only track within the church hierarchy.

Dr Williams tried to broker a compromise, mindful that elements on his conservative flank were mulling an offer from Rome to take in schismatic Anglicans. That compromise has failed.

Meanwhile, away from the synod, the archbishop has become embroiled in a row about the prospect of a gay man presiding in the Southwark diocese. Canon Jeffrey John was under consideration for the high-profile south London bishopric until his name was leaked. His candidacy was then effectively derailed by conservative evangelicals. Dr Williams has too often submerged his own liberal inclinations in what he sees as a higher duty to preserve institutional unity. Now, surely, his priorities should change.

Most of Britain has accepted that women can assume positions of authority and that homosexuality is a quite ordinary part of human experience. The explicit discrimination practised by the church is unacceptable in most non-religious settings and would be illegal if expressed by any other employer. There are, meanwhile, ample theological grounds for accepting that women are not created subordinate to men and that homosexuality is not hateful in the eyes of God. Dr Williams was determined not to go down in history as the Archbishop who split the church. He could have been remembered by future generations as a religious leader who stood unequivocally on the right side of a moral argument about sexual equality. Regrettably, that opportunity seems now to have passed.